There is a map of the world in the hall of Joy’s city centre apartment which is covered with red dots. Each one represents a place she has visited – but there are still plenty of spaces to fill. ‘I love travelling and it’s the reason I decided to move into a flat, so I could just lock up and go whenever I felt like it,’ Joy explains.
Joy painted the walls cream to match the B&Q units, so the kitchen blended seamlessly into the rest of the room. The worktop is from Peter Thompson of York. Joy liked the compact Ikea corner sofa and added a footstool covered in Zoffany fabric from Plaskitt and Plaskitt
But there was no walking away from the amount of work which needed doing to the top floor pied à terre in order to bring it up to scratch. ‘It had been tenanted for 20 years and poorly maintained, so it was very tired and shabby,’ says Joy. ‘The kitchen was installed in the Eighties and the units were all over the place. I was going to have to take it back-to-basics to get it as I wanted.’